Life Stings With Circumstances
by Zessei
Summary: A Collection of One Shots and Drabbles. Five: A beautiful woman. A desperate wish. Six: An inferno burns within her.
1. Our Choices

**Life is a Sum of All Your Choices**

_**Fate**__ - the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time_

_**Destiny**__ - The fixed order of things; invincible necessity; fate; a resistless power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual._

---

Ichihara Yuuko, to many people's disbelief, does not believe in fate or destiny.

Oh, she believes in hitsuzen alright, some things are just inevitable after all, but fate, destiny? Those things are just words used by people too afraid to take responsibility for their own actions.

She knows it's a hard thing to understand. The concepts of fate, destiny, and histuzen are just so abstract after all, how can anyone comprehend the enormity of them? They are so undeniably similar that they are easy to confuse. Indeed people had been interchanging them for thousands of years.

But Yuuko knows. She acutely, indubitably, decidedly knows. And knowledge is the second most precious commodity in the world, right after life.

So when people ask, is this fate?, when they meet her, she laughs at them and shakes her head.

"It might be Hitsuzen." She tells some of them. "Or maybe you walked in here all on your own." Because sometimes that's all there is to it. Not everything is inevitable after all, just some things.

"Choice," she tells Watanuki, smoke dripping from her lips with the words, falling heavily to the ground rather than floating lightly into the air, as though the weight of the topic affects the weight of the smoke. "Choice," she tells him, "is perhaps the single strongest factor there in deciding our lives."

"I thought that was hitsuzen?" Watanuki asks, confused, but not really. He's long since learned when to think about what Yuuko says and when to just listen. Now is the time to listen.

"Hitsuzen is the single strongest factor in deciding yours and mine's lives, which happens occasionally, but for most people, it's choice." Yuuko takes another drag off the pipe and exhales, the smoke tumbling from her lips like sin itself. "Do you remember that first woman?"

She doesn't have to say anything else. Watanuki will never forget that first woman. Watanuki will never forget any of them.

"She died, because she couldn't break her habit. She couldn't stop lying." Watanuki speaks softly, bitterly.

Yuuko sighed deeply, dregs of the smoke from her lungs twirling and twinning in the air.

"You say she couldn't, I say, she choose not to." Yuuko sets the pipe onto the low table before her and reaches for the sake bottle. She bypasses the small dish for it completely and takes a huge gulp. It burns past her throat, down her esophagus, into her stomach where it curls up like a small animal, soft and warm.

"Choice, Watanuki is very important." Yuuko admonishes when she finally pulls the bottle away from her mouth. "Hitsuzen is hitsuzen, some things are just inevitable, you and I meeting for instance. It might have happened differently, it could have happened a hundred different ways. But still, it was only inevitable." Yuuko smirks at him. "But choice is also very powerful." She leans back against the look sofa and closes her eyes. That small, warm animal in her stomach becoming a snarling, raging beast in her head.

"So, what, there is no destiny?" Watanuki scoffs.

"Frightening isn't it?" Yuuko smirks

And it is, it is, but Watanuki merely scoffs again before heading towards the kitchen, mumbling about drunk and crazy slave driving women.

Yuuko's laugh follows him out.

Yes, choice is a powerful thing. Yuuko hopes she makes the right ones.

---

**Author's Note: **First in my new xxxHOLiC collection. Very Yuuko-centric. The next won't be.

All titles will be taken from various quotes, this one comes from Albert Camus.

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	2. Luck

**Luck Never Did Anything For Me Anyway**

Kunogi Himiwari is not unlucky. She's not, she's not, she's not! Yes, she's cursed, she gets this, she understands. Every time someone falls down the stairs after brushing against her, she knows this. Every time a building burns down because she had visited the day before, she knows this. Every time she looks at Watanuki, she _knows_ this.

But Himiwari herself? Her luck isn't so bad.

Today she found five hundred yen on the ground. And a car she leaned up against to fix her shoe got in a wreck.

Yesterday she got an 'A' on a test she didn't study for. And her teacher lost her wedding band.

Last week she won a drawing at the local supermarket. And that night the freezers at the store stopped working and they lost thousands in goods.

Himiwari doesn't have bad luck, but she brings misfortune with her everywhere. She carries it like an animal on her back, and it's a heavy thing. It writhes, and wiggles, and scratches, and hiss, and that makes it all the greater a burden. And every time, every time it lashes out at those around her, because it never lashes out at her, every time it strikes, it gets bigger and heavier.

Himiwari will one day be crushed beneath the weight of bad luck that isn't even hers.

Still, she's happy, mostly.

Himiwari is intimately familiar with luck, and so she knows that it cannot be changed. Or at least that's what she tells herself. It's a tiny comfort. So small that sometimes, it's not a comfort at all, and it just makes everything worse.

"Himiwari-chan~" Watanuki calls, sitting under a tree in full bloom, it's not a cherry tree but it's lovely all the same.

Himiwari skips over to join him. Doumeki is by his side, as stoic as ever, but he nods to her in greeting and she smiles back. Watanuki takes great offense at this and begins to mutter about something that Himiwari doesn't quite hear, so she smiles again, vaguely in Watanuki's direction and asks what's for lunch.

Watanuki begins to wax poetic about his carefully prepared meal, injecting a few condescending remarks in Doumeki's direction that are stoutly ignored, almost without thinking he hands her bento to Doumeki who hands it to her. Himiwari takes it with another smile, a sad one this time.

They can't take any chances.

And even though Himiwari is the one who wanted these rules, these carefully stilted rules that lead to carefully stilted interactions, she can't help but want more.

She'd wish for it, but she knows that the price might be too high to pay.

Maybe that's what all the misfortune she carries with her is about. Maybe it's the price she pays for all the good luck she has, or maybe it's the price she pays for living, or maybe, on the opposite side of things, her good luck is compensation for the beast she carries on her back.

Himiwari would give up all the good luck she had to be able to hug Watanuki.

---

**Author's Note: **Story Two, done! Whoo! Slight, but not really, HimiWata there. The title is taken from a book I read a long time ago and can not remember the name of. The quote stuck with me though.

Next we move to Watanuki, or maybe Doumeki. I have ideas for both of them.

Feel free to give me quotes or themes to use!

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	3. Memories Make Us

**Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.**

There was something so utterly, utterly terrifying about it. Something so completely horrific it choked him, it strangled him, it sat on his chest and smothered the very breath from him.

Was he real? Was this real? Was anything at all real?

Watanuki grasped at his head, fingers lacing too tightly with his hair, causing him to wince. Watanuki wasn't a philosopher. For all he'd seen, for all he knew, he was still basically a pragmatic person, so how was he supposed to know?

What was the definition of real, anyway?

The fingers pressed harder into his scalp as he sat, hunched, alone, in an apartment that had stopped being home sometime after the sixth or eighth or tenth time staying at Yuuko's place. The nails dug into skin and Watanuki let out a hissed breath, in pain, in frustration, in anger (_at himself, at Yuuko, maybe at a God he wasn't sure he believed in_).

Watanuki sat, surrounded by pictures of people he couldn't even remember. His mom, his dad, the nice foster lady, the neighbors who took care of him when he'd moved in on his own; their faces stared up at him, smiling, accusing.

He just couldn't remember!

He sighed again, this one simply a release of emotions, of tension. He rocked back on his heels before pushing himself up from the floor. Today wasn't a good day for this (_never was a good day for this_).

He shuffled his way into the kitchen, stepping carefully over the strewn photographs. He didn't have the heart now to pick them up, plus he was running late. He was supposed to meet Himiwari-chan and Kohane-chan at the park in half an hour, lunch prepared for their picnic (_Doumeki would be there too but this fact was easily and callously shoved to the back of his mind_).

The simple meal nearly prepared itself. Rice and omelets and boiled vegetables (_all he had time to prepare thanks to the near breakdown he had, that he strictly _was not_ thinking about_) were swiftly placed into the individual boxes he had bought for all of them (_yes, even Doumeki, the ungrateful lout_) ages and ages ago.

Irony struck him as he expertly arranged the boxes. He couldn't, for the life of him, remember what his own food tasted like, but he could still make it, he could still do this much. That about as much thought went into it as as much thought ever went through Doumeki's head was only slightly troubling, so long as he didn't let himself linger on it.

He was already five minutes late at this point, so he ran the ten blocks to the park. Years of running from hungry spirits had long conditioned him for this. He made it to the park in ten minutes, so in the end he was only fifteen minutes late, still he stumbles over his apologies to Himiwari-chan and Kohane-chan, breathless and slightly dizzy. Watanuki ignored Doumeki completely.

After conversation that was largely meaningless (_Watanuki etched it into his mind anyway, desperate for any memories, even meaningless ones_), they all sat on a blanket under a tree. It was summer, so there were no blooms. It was pretty all the same.

"What's wrong Watanuki-kun?" Himiwari asked, noticing him just staring at his food.

"Huh?" Watanuki jerked his head up, glasses sliding down his nose, hair flying wildly across his forehead. "Ah, sorry, Himiwari-chan, what did you say?"

Himiwari frowned lightly, looking particularly lovely with the action and repeated her question.

"Oh, nothing, nothing." Watanuki quickly assured her, hands swinging in the air to illustrate just how okay he is. The fact the action forced Doumeki to duck to avoid being hit was only a bonus.

"Alright." Himiwari reluctantly replied. Kohane peers at him closely, as though she could divine what was wrong with him with her eyes alone. Doumeki steals food out of his bento.

"Stop that!" Watanuki flailed around trying to block his deft chopsticks. All he accomplished was spilling some rice onto the blanket. "Look what you made me do!"

Kohane giggled and Watanuki's anger dissipated like mist in the morning. He can't stay mad when she smiles like that (_not even at Doumeki_).

The rest of the outing passed as these things usually did. They finished lunch, Doumeki stole more from his bento and Watanuki went spastic (_a routine so ingrained it could be accomplished asleep_), Himiwari made inane but kind comments (_carefully, tragically, avoiding contact with all of them_), Kohane spoke shyly and smiled brilliantly (_and they all made sure to smile back, even if it was just a tiny lift to one side of the mouth_).

It was all so simple and expected and utterly, utterly forgettable. It was only one day in many, one picnic in dozens.

Watanuki was determined to never forget it.

**Author's Note: **Number Three in the house! Can I get a what, what? (_what am I on more like._) Anyways I love this one. Yay! But it's sad. Boo! The next one will be happier though.

Next story is Ame-Warashi.

Quote from Saul Bellow.

Feel free to give me quotes or themes to use!

**REVIEW OR I'LL EAT YOU! RARWGH!!!!**


	4. She Is The Rain

**Let The Rain Sing You A Lullaby**

It's raining in Paris, but this has nothing to do with out story. (Except perhaps everything.)

It's raining in Paris, and in Tokyo too.

Thick, grey sheets of the stuff muting the world. Of color, of sound, of smell, of everything.

A woman stands in the middle of the road, in the middle of a puddle. The hem of her skirt is wet but her shoes are dry. (Against every law of the natural world.) She carries an umbrella over her shoulder, its open but one gets the feeling its only for show. As though the rain would never touch her.

A thought so far from the truth as to be rediculous.

Because this woman _is_ the rain. She is every storm that pass over the mountains. She is every hurricane that hits the coastlines. She is every spare drop that lands in the desert, only to vanish in seconds, swallowed by the parched sands.

She causes the floods that ruin and take lives. She brings the gentle showers that ensure food for the farmers. She feeds the rivers. She fills the lakes.

And this woman has no name. Or maybe she has a million. Her name is every name every culture ever gave to rain and the spirits of such. She is Ame, and she is Regen, she is Chuva and Pioggia, Hujan, Zapor and Mvua.

But really, truly, she is nameless.

"Hey, Onee-san!" A child's voice calls to her as a child's hand pulls on the wet hem of her dress.

"Oh?" She mutters to rain infused air. "You can see me?" She doesn't bend to look at the child. She might have been talking to no one for all the attention she pays.

"Of course!" The child chirps. With the innocence of youth he doesn't ask why he wouldn't be able to see her. "Your shoes aren't wet."

"No, they aren't." Finally this woman (who wasn't at all a woman, just the rain) bends down to look at him. He is a very normal child. Outwardly special in no way. But he can see her. "You're very observant."

"Yeah! My mom says that if I didn't see it, it wasn't there!" He bounces excitedly on his toes, not at all questioning why her shoes aren't wet given the puddle she's standing in.

"Is that so." It issn't a question. She has lost interest. She stands and begins walking away. The child follows.

"Why are you out in the rain?" He askes as he skips besides her, making sure to jump in every puddle along the way. He splashes her once, accidently, and waits for the outrage, the lecturing. It doesn't come. She doesn't even seem to notice. Enboldened he jumps into more and more puddles, sometimes splashing her sometimes not. He doesn't notice that she doesn't answer his question.

"Do you like the rain?" She asks eventually. They've walked for ten minutes now, and she's been splashed numerous times. Her shoes are still dry.

"Uh-huh." He nods enthusiastically. "My friends don't, but I think it's pretty. Hey! You know you're really pretty too, but your hair is a funny color."

"Thank you." She smiles at him. It's soft and gentle and the child can't figure out why it reminds him of summer showers.

"Haha." He laughs. "You're welcome!"

"Would you like to see something really pretty?" She asks him, holding out a hand. "I can take you there."

For a moment it occurs to the child to refuse. She's a stranger, he doesn't know her, he shouldn't have gone this far with her. But then the thought raises that she so pretty, and nice, and she doesn't mind that he splashed her. So he takes her hand, because surely she's a good person, even if her hair is a funny color and her shoes are oddly dry.

She smiles back at him and turns, and so does the whole world. It's a blur of color and light, and when they stop they aren't in Tokyo anymore.

It's dark wherever they are, because it's night time here in this place. It's raining too, so there are no stars, there is no moon. But there are streetlights, and squares of illumination falling from nearby buildings. At a cafe nearby strings of lights are hung from canopys. They reflect off the wet streets and it's like a river of stars and lights on the ground.

"Wow!" The child disintangles his hand from hers and runs out into the streets, laughing as he resumes his game of jumping into puddles. "This is like magic!" He runs back to where the woman stands. "Hey, Onee-chan, is the magic? Are you a witch?"

"No."

"Eh? But..." The child looks around at the obviously foreing city.

"I am simply the rain. I go where it rains." She tells him.

"So, it's magic, right?" Because that's all he can understand. She shrugs, uncaring. The boy runs off to play again.

The woman watches him for a while. Once again standing in a puddle that can't seem to touch her. Then the rain begins to break off and it's time for her to go. Turning she vanishes once more, to Brazil this time.

Eventually the boy begins to get tired and returns to where he left the woman, with her wet hem and dry shoes. But she's already gone.

"Onee-chan!" He calls. The sound of water dripping off eaves is his only reply

---

The news in Tokyo for the next few days center of the abduction of a seven year old boy on a rainy day. Two weeks later the reports say he was found in Paris, full of stories of a woman who stood in puddles with dry shoes and could do magic.

No one quite knows what to think of it. But for the rest of his life, whenever it rained, the boy could be found outside, waiting, seemingly, for something.

When asked he always told them the same thing.

"I'm waiting for the rain."

**Author's Note: **I completely a totally lied when I said this one would be happier. Sorry! Still, it might be my favorite so far.

I forgot who the qoute was by.

Next features Yuuko and Watanuki, however my impending trip to japan means you won't be seeing it anytime soon most likely.

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	5. Grief & Loss

**When you lose someone you love, you die too, and you wait around for your body to catch up.**

The first year was the hardest, unsurprisingly. He missed her greatly (hugely, truly, completely), a deep sort of sadness that couldn't even be called sorrow, not exactly. It wasn't that sharp and hard and fast and fleeting. Just a bone deep feeling of sad that never left, lingering always in his heart.

It still lingered, but Watanuki had gotten better at pushing past (through, around, over) it.

He missed the outside too. Some days he stood at the edge of the fence and just watched the world pass by, Moro and Maru at his side, clinging to his legs. They watched the world they could never be part of.

And it would have been easy, so, so easy. One of the easiest things in the world to do. To take that one step over the threshold and leave all this behind. He could forget Yuuko, forget Moro and Maru and Mokona, forget Mugetsu and all the spirits he ever knew. Pretend they didn't matter and for once in his life just be _selfish. _Except he wasn't. Selfish that is. Watanuki didn't think he was even capable of being selfish like that.

So he waited in that place, removed from the world and yet still part of it. He waited and he did his best. His best to care for Moro and Maru. To keep the shop clean. To grant people's wishes.

That last one was the hardest of course.

Watanuki could still remember that first woman who had come during the depths of his grief. She was beautiful and foreign and so, so sad. Her sorrow rolled off her in waves and nearly choked him where he stood. Her long dark hair was wild and her deep blue eyes were wide and she looked like she hadn't eaten in weeks. And she was utterly, utterly gorgeous.

"_Hello." _she had said. It wasn't Japanese but he could understand it all the same. This was a place of understanding. No words were unknown here.

"Hello." Watanuki had said back, not at all concerned she wouldn't understand his Japanese. "Would you like some tea?"

She smiled at him wanly and Watanuki was struck with the thought that she'd be hard to look at if she truly smiled. Beauty such as that could be hard to look at.

He guided her into the shop and down a hall. The room he lead her into was Japanese styled and he wondered if Western might have been better, but the woman swept past him into the room, taking a deep breath as though the surroundings comforted her.

He sent Maru off to get the tea, and Moro followed because that was their way and Mokona leapt into his lap the moment he sat down. The woman sat down too, collapsing gracefully onto the floor.

"_You are sad."_ she told him, voice soft, tone kind.

"Yes." Watanuki agreed. "You are too."

"_And tired." _she added. _"I am sad and tired."_

"Why?" Watanuki asked as he poured the tea Maru had brought. The set he was using was delicate and western and he knew without ever being told that someone had traded it for a gold pocket watch. He could even tell you why.

"_I lost somebody, and now I don't know what to do with myself._" The smile she gave him this time was confused, as though she couldn't even imagine being so lost.

"You loved them, very much." Watanuki stated. That much at least had been obvious.

"_Yes, more than I should have._" The laugh that spilt from her lips was broken, dissolving into a sob mid way through.

"You really think so ma'am?" Watanuki asked, doubtful.

"_No... yes._" Tears slowly made their way down her cheeks, following the contours of her face to drip off her chin into her lap. "_How can you ever love somebody too much? But when it hurts so much, how can you ever love at all?_"

They were sad, desperate questions. And Watanuki just didn't have any answers.

"What do need?" Watanuki asked eventually when her tears had slowed into dry, heaving, sobs.

"_I don't know._" She shook her head, long hair whipping around her face, sticking to damp cheeks.

"Then what do you want?"

"_I want to be able to forget._" The woman wrapped strands of her long hair around her fist and tugged. A nervous motion that seemed to suit her too well.

"I could help you with that." Watanuki told her, knowing, only as he said it, that it was true.

"_How?_" The desperation, thick in her voice nearly choked her. The hope mixed in with that desperation nearly made Watanuki cried.

"I'll be right back." He told her without replying. "Moro, Maru." The children followed him as he walked through the elegant halls of the house, into the storage room and past heavy shelves.

"Do you know where it is?" Watanuki asked them. He didn't need to explain what as the children ran away, hand in hand. They came back in a few minutes with a small wooden box. Flowers had been carved into it, perfect in their immortal beauty.

Watanuki carried it carefully to the sad, beautiful, lonely woman. She was staring into the cup of tea in her hand as though she might find all the answers to all the questions of all the world in it's depths. Watanuki moved to sit in front of her again and she didn't even acknowledge him, too wrapped up in her own mind to notice anything outside of it.

"I have something for you." He broke into he reverie. He opened the box, displaying a old fashioned comb with a hyacinth carved on top. It was meant to sit in the folds of ones hair and be lovely and nothing more.

"_What is it?_" She asked, setting her cup down and twisting a diamond ring on her left hand, another nervous motion, this one awkward and sad.

"If you wear it, you can forget him." Watanuki told her kindly.

"_But..._" She stared at him with her wide, blue, foreign eyes.

"But you have to give me something too." Watanuki said. "Your ring."

She shifted her eyes to the ring she was twisting so desperately, almost looking surprised to see it there, as though she had forgotten about it's existence.

"_He gave me this. It.. it was the last thing he gave me._" She choked on a sob that tried to make it's way up her throat and out her lips to hover uncomfortably before them.

"Was it?" Watanuki asked practically. The woman laughed again and shook her head.

"_No. I suppose the last thing he ever gave me was grief._" She pulled her hand close to her heart and doubled over it.

"I think the only things those we love ever really give us are heartache and joy." Watanuki smiled at her with soft eyes.

The woman sat hunched over her ring and there was silence for several minutes.

"_Okay._" She said at length, straightening slowly. "_Okay, I'll... I'll do it._" She pulled the ring hesitantly off her finger. It came easily, not catching on the knuckle. She dropped it on the floor between them. The sound it made as it landed seemed too loud for what it was.

"Then this is yours." He handed the comb, box and all, over to her. She took it with trembling hands.

"_That's all?_" She asked.

"It's up to you to actually wear it." Watanuki told her. "The moment you put it in you'll forget everything about him."

"_And, if I take it out?_" Her voice cracked oddly mid sentence. "_Will I remember again?_"

"No." Watanuki stated. "Forgetting is forever. Just like remembering."

As she left, she didn't thank him, but then Watanuki didn't think he wanted her too. He wondered idly what had brought him too this country in the first place, and where she would go from here, but gave up those thoughts when Mokona proclaimed his hunger.

In the end she was just one sad woman. And there was nothing more Watanuki could do for her. Whether she used the comb or not, whether she realized that the joy of remembering would always outweigh the joy of forgetting, this was left solely to her.

The ring was taken by Moro into the storage room to gather dust and wait for the one who truly needed it to come. And they would. Because everything was Hitsuzen after all.

**Author's Note: **I just can't do happy with this fandom can I? xxxHolic just doesn't lend itself to happy really. This story originally was meant to go in a completely different direction, but I'm still entirely satisfied with how it turned out.

Title from John Scalzi.

**REVIEW OR I'LL EAT YOU! RAWRGH!**


	6. Brilliantly Burning

**There Is A Light That Never Goes Out**

Watanuki was sweeping the front walk when she came. He'd been sweeping for awhile now. Afterwards he'd work on raking, at least that was the plan. She kind of ruined the plan.

"Good Afternoon." She had said, surprising him. Watanuki hadn't noticed her come up. His eyes swung to her face and he nearly gasped.

She was pretty. All delicate features and clean lines. Her long dark hair had been curled into soft waves that framed her face well. The bruise that spread over her cheekbone and up her temple was livid and ugly and menacingly purple on her pale, otherwise perfect, skin.

"Hello." Watanuki greeted her, trying not to stare at the mark on her face. "What can I do for you?" He thought she must be plagued by particularly nasty spirits for them to leave that on her.

"I'm not entirely sure. Somehow I just found myself here." The smiled she cocked at him was full of sly humor.

"Ah, that's normal." Watanuki sighed.

"Welcome." A new voice drawled from behind them. Watanuki turned to see Yuuko in the door, smirk clear on her face but clothes oddly casual, for her anyway.

"Thank you." The woman answered in amusement. Her clothes were not casual. Her clothes were the height of fashion.

"Come in. We'll need tea Watanuki." Yuuko instructed, turning to lead the way.

As the woman passed him Watanuki noticed a large bruise on her arm, shaped like a hand, and as she walked up the stairs he noticed another, older bruise on her leg.

"What is your name?" Yuuko asked her as Watanuki sat out the tea service. They had been be sitting silently in one of the Western rooms. There was a third seat at the table, Watanuki took it to mean he should sit.

"Tsuruko." She answered in her modulated voice. Watanuki got the distinct impression that everything about this woman was completely modulated. This was a woman who thrived on control.

"Crane child." Yuuko nodded. "Pretty."

"Thank you, although I suppose my mother deserves the credit."

"Tell me, where did you get those bruises?" Yuuko asked as Watanuki poured the tea. For a minute Tsuruko said nothing, and the silence stretched awkwardly.

"You know you can love someone, and love them, and convince yourself they love you too, and doing that, you find you can forgive them almost anything. So, that first time they hit you, and they apologize of course, you think, oh it was just the once. But it's not. Then come the lies, but it's not him lying, it's you. He doesn't really mean it, he can change, it's not his fault, it's stress, it's the way he was brought up, you make a thousand excuses for him while he makes none. But one day you realize something's got to change, because if it doesn't, you might die." Tsuruko unwound a scarf around her neck, revealing a disgusting pair of bruises in the shape of hands, ringing her throat like a morbid necklace.

But that wasn't all there was.

A thick, twisting rope of black feelings and murderous thoughts lay wrapped around her neck like a noose, a heavy length of it running over her shoulder, down the floor and out the door. Watanuki had no doubt it led to that man who beat her. The pure malice of it choked him and he struggled to breath through his mouth.

"Is he okay?" Tsuruko asked as Watanuki sat hunched in his chair, hand over mouth, gagging.

"The darkness and taint your lover has left on you disturbs him." Yuuko reach over the table and set the scarf back around Tsuruko's neck. "I'm afraid it's rather bad. If something doesn't change, you will die, and soon."

"I already knew that." Tsuruko told the witch, as though it were a fact of the same caliber that the sky is blue. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, my lover will kill me. "I just don't know what to do about it yet."

"Why not make a wish?" Yuuko invited.

"A wish?" Tsuruko laughed. He laugh was as carefully controlled as her voice. "What sort of good would wishing do?"

"This is a shop, where any wish one might make will be granted, provided you can make the proper payment of course." Yuuko explained to her, carefully refilling her cup of tea.

"Of course." Tsuruko agreed.

"How about it? You could wish to change him. Make him love you. Make him treat you right." Yuuko enticed, all sharp smile and dangerous eyes. This was her hunting face, Watanuki thought.

"He already loves me." Tsuruko told her.

"He hits you!" Watanuki injected. "If he loved you-"

"He does love me!" Tsuruko interrupted him, voice breaking halfway through, that carefully modulated tone cracking. "He does, but sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes people have love, but they don't know what to do with it." She swung her head back to Yuuko. "What would changing him do? You can't force others to change. Don't you think I tried? He doesn't have to change! I do!"

"You want to change?" Yuuko spoke calmly, even as Tsuruko heaved breaths in front of her.

"I want... I need to change." Tsuruko's voice returned to it's elegant tone. "But I don't know how."

"It's not very hard." Yuuko explained to her, getting out of her chair to retrieve something from the sideboard. "All you have to do is throw away everything you are." She sat a pair of heavy steel shears on the table. "Starting with this lovely hair." Yuuko lifted a waist length lock in her hand.

Tsuruko's fingers flew to her hair, running through the heavy texture of it.

"It took me twelve years to grow it out." Tsuruko said in thought.

"Mmm, well, it's up to you." Yuuko dropped Tsuruko's hair a returned to her seat. She lifted her teacup to her lips and calmly sipped it. Minutes crawled by silently as the battered woman stared at the scissors and Watanuki stared at her.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, she reached for the scissors. She tilted her head to the side, eyes closed, facing Watanuki, as she gather the thickness of her hair in a hand. Suddenly her eyes flew open and she closed the scissors over her hair with a single, loud snip, no hesitancy at all.

She sat the hair and scissors on the table before snatching her expensive purse off the floor. She dumped the contents of it on the table, snatching her wallet she emptied it of identification, subway card, and two thousand yen, leaving the rest inside before tossing it on top of state of the art cell phone, designer make-up, and leather appointment book. She stood from her chair and began pulling her costly silk shirt off her body. Watanuki quickly slapped a hand over his eyes.

"You don't have to do that Watanuki-kun." Yuuko told him, smile in her voice. Watanuki slowly lowered his hand. Tsuruko stood in front of him dressed in a camisole and bike shorts, her skirt in a pool around her feet.

"Thank you." She told Yuuko. And Watanuki directed his attention to her face. There was a light in her eyes that hadn't been there before. It was small, and it flickered and sputtured as though it might vanish at any moment, but it was there. She left, leaving her fifty thousand yen imported shoes at the door.

"Take everything to the store room." Yuuko directed Watanuki as she wrapped a ribbon around the mass of hair to form a long tail. "Be careful with this."

"I don't understand. What just happened?" Watanuki blinked in the direction Tsuruko had left so quickly in.

"She just decided she needed a change is all." Yuuko told him with a smile. "On your way back bring some gin. This tea needs gin."

**16 months later:**

He was playing on the front lawn with Maru and Moro when a woman stepped through the gateway.

She was pretty, and smiling brightly. Her short black hair framed her delicate features well and Watanuki wondered how long it had taken her to get such a natural golden tan. She wore a large Red Sox baseball jersey and black bike shorts with sleek black running shoes on her feet.

"Hello!" She cheered at him, giving a small wave.

"Hello. What can I do for you?" Watanuki asked her.

"You don't remember me do you?" She laughed, it was loud and brilliant and unrestrained.

"...No. I'm sorry." Watanuki admitted.

"Hmm, some time ago I came here with bruises, and left with most of my hair, and clothing, missing." She give him a flirty wink, rocking back on her heels. "I have to admit, my memory of the whole ordeal is patchy, but I remember you."

"That's not surprising." Watanuki sighed. It seemed very few could remember Yuuko.

"I just wanted to thank you." She twisted a ring around her finger as she talked.

"For what? We did very little." Watanuki disagreed.

"True. I learned nothing that day I didn't already know, but sometimes it's important to have it thrown in your face." She smiled again as she ran a hand through her short hair.

"You seem so different." Watanuki stated, and it was true, she was completely different.

"I had to leave everything I was behind and become a new person. I had to change everything." Tsuruko explained spreading her arms wide to demonstrate.

"Do you ever miss her?" Watanuki asked. He didn't have to explain who. Did she ever miss the person she used to be.

"Sometimes, yeah. I spent me whole life creating her after all. I loved who I used to be and it's a little sad that she's dead now. But, the dead always leave their mark on the living. Who I was became in part who I am."

"That's good." Watanuki told her and meant it. "But why did you decide to drop by now."

"I met someone, and he adores me." Tsuruko laughed again, a joyful sound. "He thinks I hung the moon and stars."

"Do you love him?" Watanuki asked.

"No, not yet, I don't think so anyway. But I could, and that's important." She smiled. "But he's leaving for America, to play baseball for the Red Sox in Boston. He asked me to go with him. And I said yes."

"Do you still love the other man? The one who hit you?"

"I do. I will _always_ love him. But that doesn't mean I can't love someone else. The human heart is really amazing you know, it can love one person more without loving another person less." She bounced slightly on her toes as she talked.

"I see." Watanuki said even though he didn't. Tsuruko just laughed at him.

"You don't, but that's okay. I gotta go now. My flight leaves in three hours, and I gotta get to Narita before Keisuke freaks out and thinks I've changed my mind. He still doesn't quite believe I said yes." She shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if lamenting the stupidity of her lover.

"I hope you are happy." Watanuki told her sincerely as she turned to walk out the gate.

"I will be." She told him. "Because I finally realized I deserve to be." She looked back at him them, a fierce light burning her eyes, a roaring inferno that had once been a flicking flame. "We all deserve to be happy."

"Yes." Watanuki agreed softly as she walked away, throwing a jaunty wave over her shoulder in farewell. "We all deserve to be happy."

**Author's Note: **Oh my god, could it actually be a happy ending? Holy crap. Anyways this is my second favorite of the stories. Let the Rain Sing You a Lullaby is my favorite.

Title from a song by The Smiths. An awesome song by an awesome band.


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